This announcement contains
inside information
22
August 2024
Neometals
Ltd
("Neometals" or "the
Company")
Precious Metals Recovery
Option Lapse
Highlights
· Neometals Ltd to allow lapse of option to acquire 80% of private US company with proprietary
technology to recover precious metals from industrial
waste.
· Due
Diligence has not provided sufficient confidence in technical
feasibility or economic viability of the technology at its current
stage of maturity.
Sustainable process technology
developer, Neometals Ltd (ASX: NMT & AIM: NMT) ("Neometals" or "the Company"), announces its board has
resolved to allow the option to acquire an 80% equity interest in
US business, Precious Metals Recovery, LLC ("PMR") to expire on 31 August 2024.
Pilot-scale metallurgical test work has not sufficiently confirmed
the technical feasibility or economic viability of PMR's
proprietary technology.
Neometals has been evaluating the
acquisition of a majority stake in a proprietary precious
recovery
process ("PMR Technology")
and associated processing plant ("PMR Pilot") that targets recovery
of
precious metals from industrial waste streams[1]. The potential acquisition of a
controlling interest in the
PMR Technology and PMR Pilot is consistent with Neometals' focus on
commercialising processes that produce critical materials from
recycling and recovery from waste streams. The opportunity was
pursued
for its potential to enable Neometals to generate short-term
cashflow and diversify its commodity and business model exposure
from technology licensing of battery materials
processes.
Neometals has now concluded its
technical and financial due diligence process, which included
running thirty +100kg-size batch trials through the PMR Pilot and
generating a preliminary cost estimation. Highly variable batch
trial results were not able to be definitively explained and
operating costs were higher than expected.
Neometals Managing Director Chris
Reed said:
"Despite the PMR opportunity aligning with both our core
competency in the recovery of critical materials from high-value
waste streams and our desire to diversify into precious metals, our
due diligence results have identified risks that outweigh the
potential rewards at the current stage of this technology's
maturity. We would like to thank our friends at PMR for the
opportunity and wish them every success in the continued
development of their technology."
Authorised by the Board of Neometals
- ENDS
-
For more information, please
contact:
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Neometals Ltd
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Chris Reed, Managing Director &
Chief Executive Officer
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+61 8 9322 1182
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Jeremy McManus, General Manager - IP
& IR
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+61 8 9322 1182
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Cavendish Capital Markets Ltd - NOMAD &
Broker
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|
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Neil McDonald
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+44 (0)131 220 9771
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Peter Lynch
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+44 (0)131 220 9772
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Adam Rae
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+44 (0)131 220 9778
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About Neometals
Neometals facilitates sustainable
critical material supply chains and reduces the environmental
burden of traditional mining in the global transition to a circular
economy.
The Company is commercialising a
portfolio of sustainable processing solutions that recycle and
recover critical materials from high-value waste
streams.
· Neometals' core focus is its patented, Lithium-ion Battery ("LiB")
Recycling technology (50% NMT), being commercialised
in a 50:50 incorporated JV (Primobius GmbH) with 150-year-old
German plant builder, SMS group GmbH. Primobius is supplying
Mercedes-Benz a 2,500tpa recycling plant and operates its own LiB
Disposal Service in Germany. Primobius' first 21,000tpa commercial
plant will be offered to Stelco under an existing technology
licence for North America.
Neometals is developing two advanced
battery materials technologies for commercialisation under
low-risk, low-capex technology licensing business
models:
· Lithium Chemicals (70%
NMT) - Patented ELi™ electrolysis
process, co-owned 30% by Mineral Resources Ltd, to produce battery
quality lithium hydroxide from brine and/or hard-rock feedstocks at
lowest quartile operating costs. Pilot scale test work and
Engineering Cost Study update planned for completion in DecQ 2024;
and
· Vanadium
Recovery (100%
NMT) - Patent pending
hydrometallurgical process to produce high-purity vanadium
pentoxide from steelmaking by-product ("Slag") at lowest-quartile
operating cost and carbon footprint.
For further information, visit: www.neometals.com.au.
